I had to share this post. This article by the Matador Network features 48 Epic Dream Hotels to Visit Before You Die. The page made me depressed that I may never get to see or stay at some of these places, but also, extremely excited that these hotels exist and that it is still possible to see them all! The photos below are taken from the article, but if you click the link above, there are many more places to gawk and fantasize about staying at. Enjoy 🙂

Once again I sit in front of my laptop, listening to piano music( it always helps me when I’m writing,painting or drawing) and thinking about how my day was.

Beautiful!

It wasn’t perfect, it was beautiful. It started to rain when I was about to go out. I loved it! Walking in the rain is the most refreshing feeling that I’ve ever encountered. Peace, quiet, the smell of fresh air…I could say that this is the proper moment for taking decisions.

“Should I change the world today? Yes!

Do I have the power to do it? Yes!”

I feel like laughing. Some of you may think I’m crazy. Well, I am. I want to be. I have no regrets of what I have ever made. There were only lessons to learn. I’m proud of myself. I did things that others will never be able to do. I own something that…

This seems to be exactly how I feel but I find a difficult time expressing it even though I am an artist. I felt the same way about people treating me a certain way.. no amount of money is worth the depression!

Verbal Abuse has a lot of kids growing up with los self esteem. Don’t be the one it comes from!

Ok, it’s been a week and I haven’t said much but some people know where I stand on the issue. I still saw 2 new posts yesterday …. one of a teenaged girl having sex in a classroom with 2/3 boys, a parent grabbing his toddler by the arm and swinging him while beating him to shut him up and now a 4 or 5 year old boy and girl wining on each other. A few months back it was a mother holding a gun to a baby’s head. It makes me sick absolutely SICK!!

SICK! Arrested! What is the reason for this?

Yes I grew up in the age of getting the big ruler on my hands and the thick cowhide leather belt… but it’s getting a little extreme… I hate seeing kids so rude and ill behaved. I think this generation probably just like ours, parents just don’t know what to do anymore. Probably just the wishes of our parents coming true.. “When you have kids you will see how hard it is”

What they see and hear is absorbed into their young minds.

But you have to ask..what is the outcome of what is being done? What is the bigger picture? The big debate today is whether we should beat these kids. I think the debate should encompass a lot deeper issues than the final punishment.. It’s like going to a courtroom and saying she killed the man, throw her in jail and throw away the key, without hearing the back story that he beat her senseless and was coming at her with a gun.. We need to see the back story.. the bigger picture.. and we all have one!

Only pedophiles see children the same as adults!

All these videos showing up on Facebook of Kids having sex and getting beaten… In normal countries filming this kind of thing is called child pornography and you get locked up for it.. it’s filming children in a lewd conduct or sexual behaviour… I’m actually surprised they are still on Facebook when very similar “nudity” and the likes gets pulled off. Instead of beating these teens. Let them know that it’s child pornography before it happens. Let them know they can talk to you not be afraid of you. Let them know what the criminal justice system is and that it’s a criminal offence. Cyber bullying is a criminal offence… so is this really less bad that they haven’t figured out how to police this yet? Every computer has footprints, they can track this shit!

The 5 year old kids don’t know what they doing.. they think they just dancing.. they are following what they see ADULTS doing.. Who put them up to it should be beaten! Who showed them the example? And when they become teenagers everybody wanna say “give dem licks” when they ignore teachers, spit on people for talking to them, and worse having sex on camera in the classroom? Why didn’t you teach them then what you expect from them as people living among society before they reach this age? I guess that’s what these parents are doing! They teaching them it’s cute to grind on a girl… so that when they become teenagers and their hormones are raging (cause we have all been teenagers) they will know what to do with it. Remember monster’s aren’t born, they are made!

Are you the monster that your child is afraid of?

I’m tired of people saying I don’t have kids so I don’t know what I talking about. I know that kids have their own mind and no matter how much you try to beat and torture it out of them.. those minds “Absorb” the VIOLENCE they are being taught as well as the SEXUAL BEHAVIOR they are seeing all around them. The definition of Child abuse actually incorporates showing children sexual acts as abuse. People say “it’s just dancing”…Then why is it a problem when the 12 year old lifts her skirt and does it on a boy’s dick and comes home pregnant. There is appropriate dancing for a certain age! Some people will hear me sounding like parents did for “Dirty Dancing” the original version. I’m not saying ban the music.. I’m just saying the onus falls on the adults.. You have to be the change you want to see in the world.

There was one person who commented that there should be a permit for people to be parents.. am I forced to agree with that? Every man jack feels because they want a baby or they are pregnant that they should be able to mind one. WRONG! In this same breath I want to thank all the people who acknowledge that they would not be capable of taking care of a kid and don’t succumb to societal or family pleas for grandkids. Thank you for not having Kids, you know a child is not a doll.

A child is not a doll

I am familiar with the Caribbean and the culture there. I grew up there. This is why I can see that it’s not this generation to blame or the one past. Or the one before that. We can’t go back in the past and change what has been done as much as we would like to. The thing is, we just need to stop blaming now and try to find a solution to the archaic slave mentality that has us in this mess. I think we can be much more creative with punishing bad behaviour. I KNOW kids can be mischievous but they are not EVIL! They only know that they are playing. Why as a mother you don’t want any man hitting you, you don’t want your own mother to come into your house and hit you, but you think it is ok to hit someone less than half your size and strength. They cannot defend themselves.

1. Netflix justification.
While your love for watching 17 episodes of a television show in a row hasn’t changed, your feeling of “well otherwise I would be doing homework, and that must be avoided all costs” mentality
has
. Now, with each episode you watch, you have to go through a whole process of justification/shame-management when you think of all the things you could be doing with your time.

2. Desk-eating depression. At first, there was a bit of a novelty to eating your lunch at your desk, because it meant you were this cool working person, with things like a desk, and a career, and healthy-ish (because your coworkers can see it) lunch. But now, you catch yourself looking down and being overwhelmed with sadness at your leftover chicken pasta salad out of a tupperware and lukewarm Coke Zero. You want to go outside to eat but, eh, it’s…

It’s one of the first pieces of advice I can remember receiving — maybe my dad said it, or maybe I only imagine he did and ascribed the wisdom to him because I was little and when you’re little, you live in an insular world like that: “Don’t say you’re bad at something unless you’re going to try to be better at it.”

We live in a society that prides perfectionism as the be-all of virtues, and has bred generation after generation of people succumbing to its pressures. Everyone’s expected to scramble to rise to the top — we just never take the time to tell people which top that’s supposed to be. Of course, the unsaid there is to allow for room to decide exactly what that top is, where it is, what we define ourselves as the best. And when you’re a frustrated little kid who doesn’t understand…

1. An outward appearance that aligns with what other people deem appropriate and ideal. Too often I hear people hesitate to, say, get a tattoo or dye their hair or wear something “funky” out of fear of what the parents or friends or so-and-so’s in their lives will say and think. Those other people do not have ownership of your body, and it’s audacious of them to think that their opinions on what you choose to do with it matter.

2. Explanations for why you put your job first. I used to be a bona fide work-a-holic, but recently I’ve found that it’s far more important that I divide my time equally and healthfully. However, there’s one major catch: sometimes we have to prioritize, and work has to come first. It’s not about not caring about others or not “having a life,” but about the fact that you want to…

That’s right people. I work 8:30- 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturdays. I work a minimum of 40 hours a week. Sounds normal right? Wrong because, at the end of the two week pay period, I do not receive a paycheck. I receive pay through a bi-monthly “Living Allowance” that totals about $406 dollars after taxes. I work for a local nonprofit organization that gets money from VISTA, a federally funded subset of AmeriCorps that focuses on fighting poverty in the U.S. The most interesting factor? That “service members earn wages near the poverty line by design, so they are able to gain an understanding of the people they help and how best to serve them.”

In the beginning, I was a little skeptical about joining a national service because of this. I thought over and over about how I was going to survive with this type of pay…

Post card received by Post Secret, an online blog that people send anonymous post cards to with their secrets. (postsecret.com)

People tell me things, deep, painful, secret things. It’s part of the work of chaplains, why we exist. We are the conduit of their unburdening. This is a beautiful function of the human connection. Can you imagine it: healing a little just by sharing? How marvelous! We do it all the time, every day. When we tell our boyfriend how our day was, or complain to our best friend about our boss, we are healing through sharing through connection. We need each other to witness our lives and we witness for others. But because this is such a powerful need, we are sometimes afraid to share and afraid to witness the deep, hard, suffering parts. We don’t want to risk the connection. These are the burdens we keep and carry…